Open Teaching in a Digital Age

Editor's Notes

• #2 Open Teaching in the Digital Age - How do we create, remix, license, and share Think about what do we mean by open teaching? What could it mean that openness is the default action of the academic – more about this later…
• #3 Start with the basic notion of academia - Education is a social service which leads to a greater good in society. We are helping students acquire knowledge. In the process the academic creating learning materials and tools which often do not reach beyond the classroom Tools – things like text, images, video which help students learn. As we know, the Internet is changing research and teaching practice
• #4 What has changed : The internet is creating new channels for collaboration and feedback Learning materials can be considered social objects (things we share rather than control) Sharing builds networks and thereby transforms our practice as the potential reach and impact of our work is extended My question for you is do you share a little or share a lot? We have encoutered many colleagues who are happy to share but often, just a little – Why not share completely? The traditional barrier to sharing no longer exists: Sharing doesn’t cost you anything anymore. The same is true of educational resources, to share something I simply publish it, and people will find it via search or social tools such as RSS, facebook or Twitter. Largely there are issues around interllectual property, etc but we hope to help you guide you through best practice in this area As institutions it still seems we act as if sharing was a costly, difficult exercise.
• #5 I would like to share a tale of openness – Story of the networked teacher Alec Couros had completed his pdh and decided to share his dissertation with the world by publishing it on Scribd which is a website which allows you to share documents and gather feedback – that document has been viewed nearly 28000 times Because he used an open license his work was picked up and one of his diagrams became an internet sensation! The diagram was translated to multiple languages as well as a youtube video and used around the world in various academic settings You can view more fantastic stories of openness at the included web address
• #6 The key to all this is the idea of OER Academic resources can be built upon and shared The open provision of educational resources, enabled by information and communication technologies, for consultation, use and adaptation by a community of users for non-commercial purposes - (UNESCO 2002) OER is an extension of OS and OA- The Internet itself would not have started and would not have worked, had it not been propelled by free software and collaborative code. Free software development offers important lessons. It shows that anyone can contribute to a particular project and do so constructively, however small the contribution may be. (Guedon, 2009) Some software projects do fail. But a failed project is never completely wasted because the code remains accessible and can be reused freely by another project. As a consequence, the free software model also opens the promise of variety and autonomy while preserving a satisfactory degree of coherence in projects. A commonly cited benefit of using open content is that it can reduce the growing costs of education by allowing educators to develop, select, distribute, and reuse materials quickly and easily , with less dependence on traditional publishers. Traditional content is envisioned as a commodity of sorts, well-established in a marketplace of ideas. As such, it should not be reinvented each time and should be broadly available via the Internet. The idea is that by using these already prepared materials, educators can then focus on pedagogy, context, and teaching. We all know how little time we have to do our work A key feature of open content is that it is meant to be easy to update as the body of knowledge in a given field advances; changes are entered by the community and are immediately available, similar to the way Wikipedia is kept current.  As the demand for personalised learning experiences grows, educators are increasingly turning to open content to find ways of engaging their students that extend or even replace traditional course materials.
• #7 Here are a few of the more widely known university and content centric open repositories Open Indiana University – offers open scholarship, podcasts, and open course material The ever famous and premier MIT OCW Academic earth offers videos from leading universities where lectures are being recorded OER Commons – an overall directory covering most of the leading OER portals on the internet OER can be images, campus lectures, simulations, visualizations, papers, manuals - learning materials! How can we share learning materials? How is this all possible ???
• #8 Creative Commons – a self empowering license model I would like to play this video which embodies the CC philosophy
• #9 The idea of Open Licensing – why do we need it? - We are all creators of digital content Consider traditional copyright, either something was all rights reserved OR something was public domain. Often it was unclear how something could be used unless it was clearly specified I am sure we have all encountered Orphan works – Objects which are untraceable or unattached and can be difficult to use Creative commons is Copy-left - versus copy-right - a process of risk management with sharing in mind Creative commons self empowered license – which allows you to keep “some rights reserved” Using the license clauses you can let people know how they can use your work - Things to consider - Did I create this material? Whose work did I include in my works? (images, text) * Often this will include getting permission to use the material or finding a suitable replacement already using a CC license. Who do I want to share with? Famous questions Do you allow commercial uses of your work? - Yes or no Do you allow modifications of your work? - Yes, unconditionally - Yes, as long as others share alike – No We have had many people ask us HOW to get the license on a resource such as a word doc, or ppt file. I have created the following video to help walk you through that process and you will be able to access this file on our VULA site.
• #10 Iterations are about - What happens to your work once you share it? How far you want things to go and in what form? Some argue that its best to start simple and let others build on top – the Share-Alike clause will ensure that the material continues to grow- by ensuring that anyone who uses your work also shares it along. Do you want to allow copies only – this is covered by the No Derivatives clause – This may apply when sharing resources that must stay in a certain context to be useful. Medical procedures could be one example where modifications might cause problems Allow commercial use- would you allow your work to be included in a commercial work – (wikipedia actually encourages commercial use We are working on ways in which you can use web statistics to track use / access, invite collaboration and feedback through your entry on international OER directories such as oer commons, flickr, etc.
• #11 In terms of degrees of openness – CC gives us a space to operate between all rights reserved and the public domain. Here we demonstrate how the licenses an be combined for example non commercial AND no derivatives Note that as you apply more restrictive clauses the material becomes more difficult for others to use. Also note that certain media formats are easier to adapt, such as wiki and xml formats which are easily edited (built upon) and translated between applications
• #12 What we are trending towards is the idea of an open scholar. The term ‘open scholar’ has started being used to indicate a new type of academic for whom ‘openness’ is the default approach. This academic is largely online, probably keeps a blog, makes all their presentations available via something like slideshare, engages with new resources such as YouTube, shares bookmarks in delicious, belongs to social networks such as ning or twitter and publishes some of their content in open access journals. The key to all this is easy sharing and networking facilitated by open licensing and the internet. The academic can increase their reach and visibility in the process. You can see I have used the networked teacher diagram originally created by Alec Couros which has been adapted.
• #13 This slide should help you get started on accessing, appropriating, localising and creating your own open resources It is easy to begin incorporating open content into your own teaching - for example finding materials for use in a variety of formats. I have presented some of the best generic content sources I have encountered thus far. Describe resources There are far better places to find resources than simply a google search The OER movement Introduces the notion of an ordered and dynamically controlled mechanism via CC and attribution And remember that all of these repositories not only offer the content freely – they also invite you to submit content! Maybe your teaching and learning material can also become an internet sensation like Alec Couros’ Networked Teacher Diagram???
• #14 Finally I leave you with some questions for reflection and possibly discussion as time permits In what aspects of your academic life are you not open? Why? Does your institution place obstacles to openness? What would it take to convince you to be more open? What are your concerns in being an open scholar?